BSB 108
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bite-Sized Brilliance Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. April Darley, and I wanna ask you a quick question. Right now, what are some of your priorities? Go ahead. Think about it for a second. What are some of the first things that pop into your mind? Priorities you have right now. Now for the sake of this podcast and moving things along, I would imagine some common answers might be my kids, my family, my job, business, career, yard work, chores, things like that.
But how many of you stopped and put yourself in that list of priorities? Did you even make the list at all? If not, then this episode is for you today, my friends, because here's the reality, you are the golden goose, and if you don't learn to prioritize yourself, then all the people that depend on you are going to feel that as well.
What I see often in [00:01:00] people who are highly empathic or emotionally intelligent, and they tend to be high achievers, whether they call themselves that or not, is that they will prioritize other people and forget to use the same self-care systems until they hit a wall. They crash, they get an injury or burnout or fatigue.
But the body has a way of forcing you to slow down if you don't prioritize yourself. What tends to happen if you have ever been called an overachiever, high achiever, high performer, Type A, busy person doing lots of things, multitasker or elite athlete, then this certainly pertains to you. When you are a person who was doing a lot of things at
once. it is really easy to look at that as a to-do list or a lot of balls that you're juggling at once. Self-care is a lot like muscle memory. You don't just wanna [00:02:00] practice it when you collapse and hit a wall if you don't do some form of it every single day. If you don't prioritize yourself as the golden goose, then all these things that are interconnected that h ave you at the center that depend on you are going to be disrupted in some way. So if we look at this like a fire and a fire extinguisher situation, you don't wanna wait until your kitchen is on fire before you think about where the fire extinguisher is or if you even have one. You want to plan ahead and know what you're going to do if or when things turn bad.
You want to have this muscle memory in place. You wanna know exactly how the fire extinguisher works, where to point it towards the fire. What do you pull? Where is it located? How often does it need to be recharged? Does it expire? You want to build this in as part of your [00:03:00] muscle memory and create habit systems and routines that are going to be automatic.
So when you experience some kind of fire type situation in your life, you don't scramble or shut down . That is kind of the worst things you can do. If you look at the nervous system, fight, flight, freeze, that's a freeze state. If you didn't have any of this muscle memory built, if you didn't do fire drills or routines or practice nervous system regulation or any kind of self-care, i.e. prioritizing yourself on a consistent basis so you don't have the muscle memory to kick in when things go wrong.
So self-care isn't something you do when you have the time or nervous system regulation isn't something you do only when you're activated. You need to learn to do it when things are good and when things are bad. Because how the brain works is your survival brain will [00:04:00] hijack your logical brain.
Your logical brain is where we have what's called executive functioning, and it's where we. plan, organize, and focus. When that survival brain gets activated, it is part of the design that your focus and higher processing gets hijacked. Because we are preparing to fight or flight, ideally, we don't wanna freeze, but when that executive functioning, when that prefrontal cortex gets sabotaged, you're gonna
forget. all the great things you learned when things were calm and safe. Unless you have created muscle memory that can kick into gear. I wanted to bring that to your attention because it's very common to deprioritize yourself when you have a lot of things that you're juggling at once. That is a strategy, but it's not a very good one.
It may sound selfish. Some people may be listening to this and going, _Ooh, that makes me _[00:05:00] _cringe to prioritize myself_. And that is a lot to do with conditioning and it's innocent type of conditioning. But when you hear things like it's better to give than receive, and if you've heard that a lot over and over as a kid, you know what other people want matters more than what I want.
Or it sends the signal that will subconsciously cause you to deprioritize your own self, your wants, your needs and empaths do this anyway. But if you had that kind of household where you grew up or you got that kind of conditioning that what other people want matters more than what you want.
Then deprioritizing yourself becomes a sabotage, and it's wearing the clothing of nobility.
It looks like the polite thing to do. It may sound like the giving or selfless thing to do [00:06:00] because there's also that conditioning that tends to go along with it's better to give than receive, and it sets the subconscious message of don't be selfish. That would make you bad. And because we don't want to be perceived or judged by others as bad, then we try to avoid the actions or behaviors that could even seem bad to other people. We tend to view self-care as selfish or prioritizing ourself as selfish instead of necessary because you're the golden goose. The most commonly used example is you need to put your own oxygen mask on before you assist others. Some part of us is aware that we need to take care of ourselves, but that logic gets lost when the survival brain kicks in or when that subconscious kicks in of nice people, put other people first. It's better to give than receive. Don't be selfish and think about [00:07:00] yourself. Think about others first. And it's really easy to get lost in that swirl of, what am I supposed to do?
Instead of what's gonna work for me as the golden goose and keep all the balls running. And what that may look like in your world is don't cancel your therapy or coaching appointments because you're busy. Don't stay up too late obsessing or thinking about a problem, and cut your sleep short. Don't doom scroll on your phone instead of going to bed. , Don't let yourself get dehydrated because you're too busy to drink water. Don't go without eating because you're too busy to eat. Don't delay going to the bathroom because you need to finish what you're working on. When you do these things, when you delay these signals that your body is giving you, you're really teaching and reinforcing the subconscious pattern of what I want doesn't matter as long as [00:08:00] other people are happy. This is a trap. It's a harmful trap that I don't want you to fall into. I want you to think about yourself. It is great to think about others, but I want you to think about yourself first and learn to give from a position of overflow instead of a position of I need to do this, so they will like me and accept me, and everything will be okay.
Because one is helpful, one is harmful, and when you are a person who is responsible for a lot of other people, whether that be your family or your job you do wanna start thinking like, I am the golden goose. I need to prioritize myself so that I do have overflow to give to others. And prioritizing myself is an act of service and love so that I can magnify that love and share it with other people.
Understanding how you personally think on a subconscious level when it comes to [00:09:00] prioritizing yourself and self-care and rest is so important for you to really frame it in a helpful way instead of a harmful way. The reason I decided to talk about this is because I had some clients try to cancel this week and go, I'm just too busy.
And I try to be reasonable and flexible, but I do want to point out, is it that you're too busy or is it that your system of time management isn't efficient? Or is it that you are not prioritizing yourself as the golden goose? Do you really not have one hour of time to do this, or are you just saying, I have other things I need to do because I'm less important?
Be realistic and honest with yourself about that. Sometimes the answer will be no, I don't have time. I'm putting out fires. Fair enough. But in reality, a lot of times the answer is, I don't consider myself as important as all of these other things, and that's not [00:10:00] okay because that is the fast lane to burnout.
It's the fast lane to exhaustion energetically, mentally, physically, spiritually, and that is the fast lane that you do not want to be a part of. I say this a lot. If you listen to this podcast, check yourself before you wreck yourself because I want you to truly understand the real reason behind your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, and your beliefs.
It may not be what you logically think it is. You may be acting from a reactive position and not a position of power. And that is what I can help you correct if you find yourself in this imbalance. Power is the balance between force and flow, and it is awareness and discernment to see whether you're on the helpful side of that spectrum or the harmful side of that spectrum, or you're trying to force more. Force more [00:11:00] performance force more activity, or whether you're flowing because it's efficient, but you're also respecting yourself and resetting yourself as part of that flow. If that is a balance that you struggle with. Then this is where I can help. Right now I offer a free consultation where you can learn about the mental mastery that I teach my clients so that you are looking at situations from three different perspectives and you're learning to blend this and really uncover what about you on a deep personal level is causing a reaction instead of strategy.
Then we create a helpful strategy to keep you out of harmful reactions. If that sounds great, then book your free consultation at aprildarley.com and check out my private coaching programs I have called Decode and Amplify. These are for people who want to build a better life for [00:12:00] themselves and create impact that honors themselves as the golden goose.
Because the reality is we're all interconnected and there might be a lot of people depending on you right now. If you don't have the right systems and strategies in place, that can feel very overwhelming and crushing. But when you honor yourself as the golden goose, you learn to flow and you can be super speedy and efficient at times, but flow back to a balance and reset when you need it without hitting that wall that causes you to crash or burnout.
Then these things in life become wobbles instead of crashes. If that is something that sounds great, let me know. I am here to help you, my friend, but this week I want you to make sure that every day you are prioritizing yourself. Give yourself a little self love, self care, even if it's only for five minutes a day.
Do that for yourself because honoring yourself honors everyone who helped get you where [00:13:00] you are today. Wishing you so much love my friends. Bye-bye.
